Some unfortunate news in the Air Force world today: The body was found in the Gulf Of Mexico today, along with the general location of the stricken F-16.

have confirmed the death of the unnamed pilot.

There is no real official information available as to a possible cause of the F-16 crash or how it may affect the QF-16 program, if it was indeed one of the jets being converted into a drone. I have been told by different sources that the aircraft was on its last test flight before being certified as a QF-16 and put into the FSAT fleet.

What also remains unclear is if the pilot was a private contractor or an active USAF pilot as there is a private industry team that supports the conversion and fielding of mothballed F-16s into FSAT drones.